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Saying it is one thing. Doing it is very different.

Milton Friedman

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Milton Friedman
Age: 94 †
Born: 1912
Born: July 31
Died: 2006
Died: November 16
Economist
Essayist
Statistician
University Teacher
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Milton Fridman
Different
Thing
Saying

More quotes by Milton Friedman

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They think that the cure to big government is to have bigger government... the only effective cure is to reduce the scope of government - get government out of the business.
Milton Friedman
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We measure poverty by what I believe is a very, very crude concept. We actually measure poverty by trying to get some kind of an estimate of the minimum expenditures on food that are required to maintain health, multiplying that number by three, and saying that's the level of poverty. And it's a very crude, inaccurate arrangement.
Milton Friedman
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Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself ... Economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.
Milton Friedman
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Economic freedom is ... an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.
Milton Friedman
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The history of mankind is the history of money losing value.
Milton Friedman
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I think there is universal agreement within the economics profession that the decline - the sharp decline in the quantity of money played a very major role in producing the Great Depression.
Milton Friedman
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If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.
Milton Friedman
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China has seen a great deal of economic progress. It's certainly rather of a miracle. The growing role of the market in the economy will force China to open up its political system over time and to move toward a more democratic society. So taken as a whole, the one real failure in this whole business has been Russia.
Milton Friedman
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Our emphasis here is based not only on the growing seriousness of drug-related crimes, but also on the belief that relieving our police and our courts from having to fight losing battles against drug use will enable their energies and facilities to be devoted more fully to combating other forms of crime.
Milton Friedman
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Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding of ideas and values to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes.
Milton Friedman
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In a bureaucratic system, useless work drives out useful work.
Milton Friedman
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Richard Nixon was a very intelligent and able man. And he had the right ideas. But he did not have the adherence to principles that [Ronald] Reagan had. He did some very good things. We owe to Richard Nixon the volunteer army - he got rid of the draft. And that was a major increase in freedom.
Milton Friedman
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As a nation, we have been responsible for the murder of literally hundreds of thousands of people at home and abroad by fighting a war that should never have been started and can be won, if at all, only by converting the United States into a police state.
Milton Friedman
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Fundamentally, there are only two ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion - the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation of individuals - the technique of the marketplace.
Milton Friedman
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Rapid increases in the quantity of money produce inflation. Sharp decreases produce depression.
Milton Friedman
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.
Milton Friedman
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The evidence of history speaks with a single voice. I do not know any exception to the proposition that if you compare like with like, the freer the system, the better off the ordinary poor people have been.
Milton Friedman
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Only a crisis - actual or perceived - produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.
Milton Friedman
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You can only make money if you buy a product, whatever it is - maybe a currency, maybe wheat and maybe something else - at a relatively low price and sell it at a higher price than you buy it at. There's no other way to make money.
Milton Friedman
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[T]he burden of government is not measured by how much it taxes, but by how much it spends.
Milton Friedman